RKD Netherland Institute for art History
The first article is by Elize Mazadiego, who is Marie Skłodowska Curie Fellow at the University of Amsterdam. She gives an account of Amsterdam’s In-Out Center, which was established in 1972 and provided a new platform for a transnational network of artists, especially from Latin America. As part of her research, Mazadiego consulted the archive of one of the founders of the In-Out Center, the Columbian-born Michel Cardena (1934-2015), whose archive is cared for by the RKD.
The RKD has for a long time been a rich source of information about Collectie Nederland, something that is perfectly illustrated by curator Ellis Dullaart in her account of Piek-van Ditmar’s bequest. It emerges, moreover, that the RKD played an important role in negotiating and distributing the collection bequeathed to the Dutch state by Hendrik Piek (1879-1950), which included a remarkable album of brunaille drawings by Allart van Everdingen (1621-1675), now in the Rijksmuseum.
In her article ‘Horatius Paulijn: the life and work of a painter who broke with tradition’ curator Rieke van Leeuwen shows that unknown ‘little masters’ can sometimes escape from the obscurity to which history has consigned them. Her painstaking research allowed Rieke van Leeuwen partly to reconstruct the course of Paulijn’s life, eventually tracing 24 paintings from his hand.
In 2021 Lot Baumann did her work experience at the RKD and she is now studying for the Curating Arts and Cultures Masters at the UvA. Her contribution to the RKD Bulletin concerns the painting Landscape with a pigeon, rooster and hen and various waterfowl, an unrecorded work by the seventeenth-century painter Melchior d’Hondecoeter. She finds a place for the work in D’Hondecoeter’s oeuvre, linking it with a drawing in the Rijksprentenkabinet.
The RKD Bulletin appears twice a year thanks to an annual contribution from the Friends of the RKD. The publication is not just a platform for experienced researchers and RKD staff members, but it also provides a forum for research by younger art historians. The RKD hopes that the RKD Bulletin will also appeal to newcomers as a stimulating noticeboard for ideas. Suggestions for articles can be addressed to the editors using this email address: bulletin@rkd.nl.